Automating your workers is always shunned by the most elite of Civilization players. And this is true: Automating your workers can break your civilization due to poor planning of improvements. It doesn't have the AI to know whether to connect your resources first, build farms/cottages first, or even roads first; It just builds based on what auto choice you picked.

Now, to the beginner, I would say just automate. Right now, you're trying to get a good feel of the game, and you certainly do not want to be burdened with too many choices (you have a lot of other choices to deal with anyway). "All this stuff about mines, cottages, farms, plantations, AH, TOO MANY CHOICES." So just automate. If you start your game with a low difficulty level, it certainly would not kill you to automate all your workers and you will still learn the basics.

Of course, if you want to be a better, if not the best, player in Civilization IV, eventually you will understand that your choices are the best choices to winning. Once you realize that having absolute control is the way to go, you will start to build your civilization by hand, and your civilization will be better because of it. It's not even that irritating once you get used to it, and believe me: It makes sense to do it yourself, and it pays off.

Worker AI does not know what is vital. It only knows how to build random improvements for you, which is not recommended. You need to prioritize by connecting your resources first, building cottages and farms, and maybe chop your trees within a 3x3 radius of your city if you are a tree chopper. This is where the worker AI fails and sometimes it can fail your civilization when playing at higher difficulties.

It is only once you have established an effective trade network that you should have your workers automate. This is to lessen your workload and for the most part, they will only build roads/railroads to maximize your movement speed. But I would say only start automating when you have all your resources connected and you have used up 70-80% of your land on improvements or some sort.

Eventually you will stop using your warriors to explore automatically, also. All that does is give your unit a basic sense of direction and send it aimlessly, when there could be villages with free loot about. When you manually explore the world, you will spend less turns to explore your land, and you can effective find villages along the way.

To automate workers or not also depends on your playing style. I know I can manage my workers better than the AI but I prefer to automate them after my initial expansion because of the "fun" factor. I nearly always play on huge maps at marathon speed and worker management just gets too boring. I have more "fun" just worrying about the big picture stuff, the only time I like to micromanage is during war. Remember this is a only game and there is nothing wrong with using less than perfect strategies if you have more fun doing it.

I agree that automating has its problems. I only use it when I'm out of things to do with my workers and I don't really feel like having them join any cities. Even then, I tell them not to alter pre-existing improvements.

I generally regard automating workers as a bad habit to get into, and so I strongly advise beginners never to use it. If they leave improvements to the AI from the start they never really learn how to make the most of their workers and terrain. The same is true for just about all the other in game automation functions. They may be better than a beginner, but by far the best way to learn how to make the best use of things is to try and use them yourself, even if you do make a lot of early mistakes.

I like to build all the non-road improvements manually and then tell my workers to build a trade network. They handle expanding borders, new resources, railroads, etc without taking any of my precious time. I would never fully automate a worker though.

What do you guys think of the settler recommendations? A lot of times the game recommends a spot near one I was looking at, but about a tile off. Is the game wrong, or am I just bad at picking cities?

Wait, are you sure workers can join cities? I thought they took that out of civ4.

Wait, are you sure workers can join cities? I thought they took that out of civ4.

They did. I miss it.

how is it possible to automate workers to build new stuff, but not overwrite your old stuff?

thanks,
dave

there is an option in OPTION where you check "do not build over old improvement".
There is also "Do not destroy forest (and jungle)"
When you have a worker, you can automate him to network, meaning he will only build roads to cities and ressources and build only the improvements for your ressources. I usually have one worker do that and another who i micro for the improvements.

But after i got 4-5 core cities done in my Civ, i automated all my workers for the tertiary cities. It get tedious after that.

I've had a first bash at manually using my workers, and it does seem to speed up my development, the only trouble is I run out of things to do by the middle ages, and just end up moving them round... I've ended up making them automated for trade at this point.

Early on, your workers ARE your game and the decisions you make with them are extremely important - affecting the rest of your game.

Eventualy however your attention will turn to more pressing matters and the cost of worker automation will also diminish (cost being the difference between effective human management and the less efficient AI management). At this point, I'd rather let the AI manage some or most of my workers while I deal with bigger picture issues. If I need workers in a hurry somewhere I can always grab a few and turn off their automation for a bit.

I only automate for Rail Road, by than i have everything else done and i know they can not mess that up. :)

most of the time i have something to do for my workers. build some cottages here for the next citizen in this city, bulldoze some cottages there in favor of some farms to get that city growing, connect the newly grabbed luxury etc.

keep in mind that automating your workers isn't just building "bad" improvements, they also don't keep an eye on your cities. you'll end up with a size 3 city with 20 improvements, a size 7 city working 4 unimproved tiles and a size 5 city with 10 cottages but stagnating due to lack of farms. that's a waste.

Question: How many people playing on huge maps keep all their workers on manual control?

Question: How many people playing on huge maps keep all their workers on manual control?

Well I do for one. Automated workers are just so inefficeint, and it really doesn't take that much extra time to have them under manual control.

not i but i'm a noob

Great site. Great Info. Some stuff a little over my head (requires multiple reads to fully comprehend). Keep it up! :)

I have Start All Workers Automated turned on and it will be turned off when I get home. I have had some decent results with it on (I am new, my first Civ title, my first TBSG so I am getting my feet wet on Settler) and after reading this thread I wanna see if I can do any better (from the sounds of it I should). I had posted in another forum (GlitchSpot) that I wascertain the AI would make better improvements than I as they should know the game. Sounds like that was wishful thinking.

I like the idea about having multiple workers and using one to automate trade routes. The others are left on manual. Good stuff.

Well they do know the game, but they don't know what You want. What improvements to make involve trade offs, and the computer has a set way of managing those trade offs, that might not be the method you have.

Key areas where worker automation fails
1. Specialization (the computer does poorly on this in general [which is why you should carefully manage Nationa Wonders as well])

2. Chaining Farm Irrigation

3. Wasting Worker time (they will build unused improvements when improvements are needed other places)... also replacing improvements (like Towns) that took a lot of time.

They Do tend to build good 'Generic' cities, especially if you stop them from replacing improvements... then you can go in and Fine tune them.

I was a pretty avid Civ 3 player and have now worked my way up to Emporer on Civ 4. I have NEVER micromanaged my workers, I guess I will give it a shot now though after reading some of these posts.

Question: If the automation makes such bad choices for you, does that mean that the other civs in your game have workers making bad choices for them?

Question: If the automation makes such bad choices for you, does that mean that the other civs in your game have workers making bad choices for them?

Yes. That's one of the primary reasons the AI needs such a large handicap in order to compete.

there is an option in OPTION where you check (...) "Do not destroy forest (and jungle)"

Actually, it is "Atuomated Workers Leave Forests". Jungles ARE chopped even when this option is checked. And that is a good thing, because jungles bring NO benefit, and several disadvantages (unhealthyness, -1 food, -1 commerce when next to rivers, cant build improvements, etc)

Even the +25% defense bonus they provide is NOT a good thing, IMHO. When its within YOUR border, usually only the invading AI troops benefit from it. You have the advantage of roads/railroads (fast attack from cities to marauding troops, and then retreating back to safe spots, or even back to the cities). So YOUR troops are usually inside cities, and they only come out to attack invaders, not defend (thus not geting defensive bonus froom jungles).

Also, most (if not all) jungles are in grassland tiles, so chopping them make room for chaining irrigation with farms between distant cities with no direct access to fresh water.

Last but not least, automated workers build improvements even outside cities radius. That seems useless, but when youre done with improvements inside cities radius, thats good too: invading AI troops LOVE to waste turns razing improvements, even those distant, useless ones. So having lot of cheap (turn-wise) improvements like cottages near your borders (or everywhere) REALLY slows downs the dumb AI, giving you much more time to wipe out invaders before they even get close to your cities.

Just my 2 cents...

(also the improvements build outside city radius are often Farms, allowing for more "chain paths")

I agree, I've come around and realize that worker automation doesn't do you any good, but I tried it in one game and after a while, the automated workers have nothing to do and end up just camping out in a nearby city not doing anything.

What do you do in this situation? You have too many workers and not enough work.

because jungles bring NO benefit,

..until Medicine is researched and Envoiromentalism gives +1 happy from them. :)

I generally regard automating workers as a bad habit to get into, and so I strongly advise beginners never to use it. If they leave improvements to the AI from the start they never really learn how to make the most of their workers and terrain. The same is true for just about all the other in game automation functions. They may be better than a beginner, but by far the best way to learn how to make the best use of things is to try and use them yourself, even if you do make a lot of early mistakes.
I agree with him. I think if I were to bring a newb up in Civ4 I wouldn't encourage him to use any automation. There are plenty of blue cicles, flashing icons, and advisor suggestions to allow a player to skip thinking from time to time so the game doesn't get burdensome. Unlearning a bad habit like automating workers will be a very unfun one to overcome, not to mention that never having to think about how one should improve his land will be a long term handicap for a player. I would tell a newb to figure out what improvements to use on his land early, since that kind of planning is so fundamental to the entire game.

Should I improve for shields? For food? For commerce? What is the impact of each? Having answers to these questions is the fundamental core of Civ gameplay. Not having to answer them isn't helping a player.

I have been playing Civ4 for about 3 months. This is the first Civ game I have played, so the learning curve has been steep. I started out with automated workers just because I didn't have a clue. After finding this site and reading ALOT, I now manually control my workers the whole game except for one or two dedicated to road network improvement.
I'm still not sure I make the right decision's on anything, but I am winning on Warlord, so I must be doing okay so far. :)

..until Medicine is researched and Envoiromentalism gives +1 happy from them. :)

Good point! I forgot that one... :)

But still, as jungles need to be within city radius, i think one would never really benefit from this. Because by the time you get to Medicine:

- Your cities are big, and you want to have all tiles improved. Jungles prevent that.

- Happiness is not such a big issue as health (no doubt unhappiness is worse than unhealthiness, but its also more controllable). Jungles are a tradeoff between health and hapineess. Not a good one, imho.

- You dont want to give invaders such a nice defensive spot that close to your cities. (ok, same applies to forests. but at least forests give you health AND happiness, and allows inprovements)

How come when I conquer AI cities, they usually have lots of cottages, but when I automate my own workers they tend to build lots of farms? It doesn't look like the same strategy is being used by the AI civs and my automated workers.

I automate my workers for one reason - my turns would take forever if I didn't. I tend to create a LOT of workers to get my tiles developed and also to build forts on my borders. I never play single player, always hotseat games with my wife. She would die of boredom waiting for me to move all those workers around every time - it gets excruciating enough waiting for each other when a war is going on and we have a lot of military moves.

The only automation I use is the "Build Trade Network" after I get railroad. That saves me the hassle of building my rails. Other than that I'm all manual now. Mostly thanks to this forum. I used to let the computer handle it, but now I'm more smarter.